due to mature and graphic subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. at the center of any criminal investigation is a dark heart and the iron hand of justice. >> the blood on their faces was dry. the blood on the floor was dried. we found numerous bags filled with bloody rags we found mops that were used to try to clean up the blood. >> he murdered his entire family and then disappeared without a trace. >> he told the schools that the kids were going on vacation. he canceled the mail.

he canceled the milk deliveries. he prepared himself for this. >> what drove john list to assassinate his loved ones? >> he believed that he had done god's will, that he had sent these people to heaven prior to them being tainted by worldly things. >> would authorities ever track him down? >> i just said, this is a guy that needed to be caught 18 years ago and needs to be caught now. >> on this "dark heart iron hand: to catch a killer." john list slaughtered his family and then walked away. he left behind clues as to why he did it. there was no trace of the killer, himself. john list started a new life with a new identity and for 18 years he lived as a free man. as you will see in our next hour, police and the fbi hunted this fugitive. every lead turned into a dead end, until a tv program and a

sculptor's incredible vision helped track down one of america's most wanted criminals. >> the list murder was shocking, for a number of reasons. number one, murders aren't commonplace in westfield, obviously. and the murder of five people was considered back then a mass murder. this was big news. this was like the crime of the century to people who lived in this area. there is nothing that's been as bad as this. i think it is one of the worst things that could happen. something like this isn't normal. assassinating your whole family. >> total horror, shock. things like that just didn't happen in westfield. people were terrified that we had a serial killer in westfield. >> december 7th, 1971, a cold

and rainy night in a quiet, new jersey suburb. >> i was assigned to a radio with another officer. we got sent up to hillside avenue because the neighbors had seen this man and woman around the property. drama teachers of an afterschool drama group that the list girl belonged to. we asked them what they were doing. they said they were worried and they left because it was a family illness out of state. we were told it was six to eight weeks since they were heard from. >> charles haller, then a patrolman, assigned to the uniform division of the westfield police department. >> it was after 6:00 at night. it was still fairly light out. we could see by looking at the property from the street that they had been gone quite a while because there were periodic newspapers that were still in the driveway that hadn't been picked up. >> for the past month, neighbors

noticed lights on inside the house. now, they were flickering on and off and some were burning out completely. >> we went up to the house, went around the house, the doors were locked. we go up on the front steps and go to the right of the front door. it was a pretty good-sized window. i looked in and you could see a fish tank and the fish were still swimming in the tank. so we tried the window and the window was open. >> the 19-room, three-story victorian mansion is known as breeze noel, one of the most expensive and elaborate homes in the affluent neighborhood. >> so we go in, go through the front entranceway and there is a ballroom. >> six people live at breeze noel, john list, a mild-mannered church-going accountant and his wife, helen, and their three children, 16-year-old patty, 15-year-old john jr. and 13-year-old frederick. also living with the family was list's 85-year-old mother, alma.

>> we hear music playing in the ballroom. the inside of the house was cool. you could tell the heat hadn't been on. there wasn't much furniture at all. there were still things in cardboard boxes and stuff stacked up against the wall. you could see the light fixtures were the old type that came out of the wall. they had no shades or covers on them. you could see some of them burnt out. some of them were ready to burn out because they were flickering back and forth. that's what these people saw when they went around the house. so we go to the left of the, i guess it would be like a small dining room, and there is a curtain that goes from the top of the ceiling to the floor. so we pull back the curtain and that's where the music was coming from. it was the type of music you here when you go in a funeral home, like not a funeral march

but like this symphony music that plays the same thing over and over and over. >> this music is a poignant clue as to what officer haller is about to stumble upon. >> what we had were flashlights. we shined the flashlights and see these bodies on the floor. they were on sleeping bags. they still had all their clothes on and their faces were covered. the three kids were lined up facing the entranceway and the mother was in front of them. >> what started out as a routine inquiry has become the discovery of a mass murder. laying on the ballroom floor are patty, frederick, john jr. and their mother, helen. >> i knelt down to the body that was closest to the entranceway to check to see if there were any signs of life. there wasn't. we checked the other three bodies and there were no signs of life at all. at that time, we had no portable radios. so my partner said to me, stay here. i will be right back. he had to go back to the car to call on the radio for additional

help. i figured what do we have now? we still have the rest of the house to go through. i am thinking, what else are we going to find? >> they don't have to wait long. >> after my partner came back, other men came up to the house and we went through the house from top to the bottom and we found his mother up on the third floor in the closet. >> five bodies, the three children still have their coats on as if they were surprised by the killer as they came into the house, after school, perhaps. both helen and her mother-in-law are in their nightgowns but john list is nowhere to be found. >> at the time, in 1971, i was the night editor of a magazine in new jersey and i was at my desk and received a phone call from a good friend who was a reporter at the daily journal, the local paper for this area, "the daily paper." he told me what had happened. >> timothy benford and james johnson are westfield area natives and co-authors of "righteous carnage," a book about the list murders.

>> i was a young household owner in westfield with two daughters. the news terrified everybody. >> helen list had been shot in the left side of the head in the kitchen and dragged down the hall to the ballroom. 16-year-old patty lay on her left side shot in the head. frederick was lying on his stomach, a pool of blood beside him. >> the blood on their faces was dried. the blood on the floor was dried. you could see the drag marks where they dragged them from wherever he shot them to the ballroom. >> john jr.'s death seemed particularly cruel. >> he was shot as least ten times. it appears as though he tried to put up a struggle. it is possible when he came in, he saw what happened and tried to get away. >> just as shocking as the crime scene itself is the trail of incriminating evidence purposely left all throughout the house. >> we found numerous bags that

were filled with bloody rags mops that were used to try to clean up the blood. there was like a little office area. there were notes left all over by him where to find things, with are to find the keys to open the cabinet where the guns were. >> inside that cabinet, a nine millimeter automatic and a 22 caliber pistol, along with ammunition. inside the desk, insurance policies, tax records and a book detailing the list family's accumulating debt but the most astonishing piece of evidence is a letter written by john list himself, addressed to the pass for of his church, reverend eugene wrinkle. westfield police captain, bernard tracy. >> they find confessions from mr. list saying he had done this and why he had done it. >> the letter read, i am very sorry to ad this additional burden to your work. it went on to say, i know that

what has been done is wrong from all that i have been taught and that any reason that i might give will not make it right. but you are the one person that i know that while not condoning this will at least possibly understand why i felt that i had to do this. the murder was complete and the list went on to describe the strange aftermath. after it was all over, i said some prayers for them, all from the hymn book, he wrote, that was the least i could do. i leave myself in the hands of god's justice and mercy. please remember me in your prayers. i am only concerned with making my peace with god and of this i am assured because of christ's dying even for me. the letter is signed simply john. >> list's incredible five-page written confession goes on to detail his private agony and eventually reveals his motives. case closed. it would seem. only one problem. the letter is dated november

9th, 1971, a full month before the grisly discovery. john list is long gone. >> he called the schools. he told the schools that the kids were going on vacation. he canceled the mail. he canceled the milk deliveries. he prepared himself for this. it was very well thought out, very well planned. i mean, from all indications, the bodies were there at least a month. so he had a month head start. now, the idea is, where would he go? where would he possibly go and how could he get there? immediately, the search begins. when we come back -- >> he didn't feel he was enough of a man with his wife. he didn't feel he was enough of a man as a householder. he didn't feel he was enough of a man once he lost his job and once he had this big house.

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john list, a mild-mannered accountant and devout lutheran is wanted for the brutal murders of his mother, wife, and three children. police only discover the crime a full month after it is committed. and john list has disappeared leaving only the bodies of his five victims and a detailed confession behind. westfield police captain bernard tracy. >> he had a car and they found it in long-term parking at kennedy airport. they thought he could have traveled overseas, he could have traveled domestically by airplane. so they check all of these things out. i mean, with a month head start, it is very difficult to come up

with too much. so, basically, their leads dwindled very quickly. that was the only accurate lead they had, was the car and then that was it. >> in the beginning, we had a lot of tips. obviously, you check them all out to the best of your ability. i read that file so many times. you know, i went through the thing so many times thinking, you know, how could a person do this, first of all? those thoughts, as a detective, you try to put that together, to, you know, to resolve where he may go. >> but list seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. and the question remains, what drove this quiet church-going

man to kill his entire immediate family? authors james johnson and tim benford think his childhood may hold a key. >> he was raised in a german-american community that was lived. just about everything he did was what we would say today, by the book, by the concept that you follow orders, you do things in an orderly way and if you live your life that way, you go to heaven. >> by their account, list's mother was a dominant and domineering influence. >> he was an only child to a second marriage and i think her interest in him was total and she had a lutheran rule-oriented kind of way of raising him that a little boy will be told that out there is the danger. you stay here. stay by me. i think he got too much of that. i think this left him more than

a little angry at the way he was controlled by her. >> after serving time in the military, john list met helen taylor, whose first husband was killed in action in korea. on december 1st, 1951, they married after learning that helen was pregnant. >> that was the beginning of the catastrophe. she had some problems, some mental problems caused by a venereal disease she contracted from her first husband. this was deteriorating her brain. she was in a lot of pain and on medication. she was struggling just to live, actually, at the time of her death. >> people who knew her in town that we spoke to said she was pleasant and easy to talk to but she had become somewhat withdrawn because of her illnesses. and having a domineering husband, it always appeared to me that that marriage was a

tremendous mismatch. >> despite this, john and helen list go on to have three children, all teenagers at the time of the murder. patricia, john jr. and frederick. >> patty was the oldest, who was active in a community theater program. she probably was upsetting to her father, because she was more social. she was accepted. i think he had fears at that time that perhaps she was involved with kids who weren't the best kids in town. the boys also seemed very normal, active in sports and they seemed to have a variety of friends and they were good students. they were average kids living in a difficult situation. that was obvious to some of the neighbors. >> except for patty. >> she was rebelling. she got into theater and with that got into witchcraft, which horrified her father. at that point, from his perspective, she was headed

straight towards eternal damnation. >> and john list was coming under intense pressure from another corner as well. >> john list had a financial problem. there is no question about that. he had mortgaged the house to the hilt. he had trouble keeping jobs. he had been unemployed for long periods of time. he also had a problem, obviously, dealing with people. it's one of the reasons he would lose his job. he just wasn't a people person. he would work in finance and where a personality was a necessary part of your job and he couldn't function. >> john list's financial problems were putting an enormous strain on him, a strain later reflected in the written confession he left at the murder scene. >> i wasn't earning anywhere near enough to support us, list wrote. everything i tried seemed to fall to pieces. true, we could have gone bankrupt and may gone on welfare. >> apparently, he didn't feel he

was enough of a man with his wife. he didn't feel he was enough of a man as a householder. he didn't feel he was enough of a man once he lost his job and once he had this big house and then he worked out this complicated, logical, in some ways, explanation for why his solution was to kill everybody else. then, he could leave a note to the pastor seeking forgiveness and, thereby, he would go to heaven. >> he wouldn't be damned. >> he distanced himself from what he was doing, and he was an accountant. there were points and they didn't match up. then, he could step back from it and begin again. he was being surrounded by all the things that he had been taught as he was growing up to avoid, all the things that were evil.

his wife, in fact, his children were in school with other children that were not of the same faith or the same beliefs or the same religious convictions. he had lost his job. he knew, financially, he was in deep trouble. he had a lot of time to think of how to get out of this. he didn't want to leave them, just abandon them. so in his own twisted mind, he determined that if they were dead, they would go to heaven still in the state of grace. >> again, john list in his own words, with pat being so determined to get into acting, i was also fearful as to what this might do to her continuing to be a christian. also, with helen not going to church, i know that this would harm the children eventually in their attendance.

so that is the sum of it. if any one of these had been the condition, we might have pulled through but this was just too much. at least i am certain that all have gone to heaven now. for john list, in the fall of 1971, the balance sheet added up to murder. like the methodical accountant he was, he had made careful arrangements for his family's doomsday. >> financially, he was taking loans. he did a few things to accumulate some money. >> two days after the bodies were discovered, john list's car is found at kennedy airport and the fbi is given jurisdiction of the case but as days turn into weeks and weeks into months and months into years, all the efforts of the fbi and local law enforcement to find list go nowhere. but one detective never gives up. bernard tracy joined the

westfield police department in 1974 and takes charge of the department's investigation of the case in 1979. eight years after list's disappearance. >> every possibility of where mr. list would go, where john list would go, we staked out, whether it was the funeral, the anniversary of the killings, religious holidays, birthdays of his children and his wife and his mother, the grave sites here in westfield. i would go out there hoping that john list would one day come there to visit and obviously he wasn't coming. >> perhaps one of the most distressing moments for the list case comes only nine mondays after the discovery of the bodies. >> i think when the house burnt down, obviously, there was an investigation thinking that john list came back and did this. that wasn't the case. we believe vandals did it, kids going in there as this morbid landmark and so on. that was an accident.

>> this is all that remains of the john list estate in westfield, a vacant lot where the mansion once stood. >> back then, the investigates were upset. this was kind of like as long as the house stood, the case stayed alive. >> the most amazing thing is that the editor of the westfield reader who was an art collector, looked in the ballroom after the fire and realized that the glass in the ceiling was a tiffany product. >> list realized that what was over his head would have solved all his financial problems. >> captain tracy and his team from the westfield police department don't let the case die, even after 17 long years. >> you were always reminded that

this man was out there and it was somewhat an embarrassing thing that this guy could kill five people and get away with it. every effort was made to catch him. did i give it a great deal of thought? yes. >> the obsession with catching list keeps the case alive. >> i think that john had an idea that the police were still actively investigating this crime and that, you know, perhaps they could catch on to him. >> but then a new development does more than that. in fact, it breaks the case wide open. when we come back --

>> now, what made the john list bust more of a challenge than any other fugitive i ever worked on was the fact that i was only given frontal views. there was no side no three-quarter view of john list available to me at that time.

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due to mature and subject matter viewer discretion is advised. at the center of any criminal investigation is a dark heart. and the iron hand of justice. >> it was reasoned and logical and extremely cold-blooded, in order to protect his family, john list had to destroy it. in his own mind, in his own words, he sent them to heaven to a better life. as we return to our story, it is 1989, 18 years since john list

murdered his family in their westfield, new jersey, home, and vanished without a trace. the case remains unsolved. did john list get away with murder? neither the westfield police department or the fbi know whether the fugitive john list is dead or alive. >> i think the most dominant thought was that mr. list would not be able to live with himself and that he would kill himself. >> bernard tracy is now a captain with the westfield police department. he took over the list case in 1979, eight years after the murders. >> i think that was easy for law enforcement to accept. we failed to find this man. so maybe he killed himself, and, you know, maybe we're chasing a ghost now. >> or not. either way, they hadn't found their man, and they were not about to give up. and then almost 18 years after the case began, they find a way to keep the case alive.

>> there was a reporter from a local paper who was working for "america's most wanted." he spoke to the producer about this case. there was a convention or something and members came from the prosecutor's office and somehow together, you know, they convinced mr. linder to look at the case. and i said, well, you know, i'm not familiar with this show, but we'll try anything. >> "america's most wanted" host john walsh. >> people will be fascinated how a guy could kill his own mother, his own wife, and his own children, three of his own children, and disappear. a guy who was -- seemed to be a pillar of society, and the more we talked about it and the more we thought about it, it seemed fascinating. >> but the list case is a cold case. and "america's most wanted" isn't confident that they can help. >> they reached out to us and said, look, you had phenomenal

success, how about doing something different? we weren't doing old cold cases in those days when we first started, we were doing breaking stories. >> they had concerns that the case was too old, that mr. list might be dead and so on. >> i said, you know what, "america's most wanted" is the court of last resort. they do things that law enforcement can't do, they'll put 15 or 16 million eyes to a case. i've always had great faith in the american public. it can show people what someone really did and give them clues. it brings the world into a smaller sphere, it makes the world a smaller place for these guys to hide. >> but some still had their doubts. >> a lot of people said, you'll never catch him, but, you know, i said don't underestimate our viewers. >> but convincing "america's most wanted" proves to be only half the battle. >> we had done some computer enhancements of john list's

picture. and, again, i didn't think they were too good. >> we didn't know how we were going to do it. we weren't sure how we can re-create it. we didn't know what are we going to do with an 18-year-old photograph. and that's where i thought of frank bender. >> frank bender is a forensic sculptor in philadelphia. and a personal and professional friend of john walsh. >> when a skull was found, frank bender would volunteer his own time, hundreds and hundreds of hours, to try to re-create the skull, what face was on that skull. and i knew he was good. cops said he was great. so john list was an incredible challenge. >> bender's assignment is to build an age progression bust of john list, showing him as he might look nearly two decades after the killings. >> frank just jumped at the challenge. he had a long history with me. i think being the artistic creative person but being the good soul he was, he said, you know, wouldn't it be something if i did something to catch this guy? >> mike linder, the original producer of "america's most wanted," said, frank, this is an

old case. and we don't normally handle cases like this, but what i need you to do is convince me that you can do such a good job that we'll catch this john list. i said, well, there is no guarantees that what i do will catch john list, but i can guarantee that what i do will look like john list. >> i was ecstatic. i thought if we can get this show -- if we could put mr. list's face out there and personality out there, that we had an opportunity to catch him. >> when i age a fugitive, i in a sense become that fugitive, i think like that fugitive, i try to walk like that fugitive. >> he didn't just re-create the bust. he didn't just from an artistic standpoint, he studied it like a scientist.

>> bender works with teams of specialized doctors and law enforcement officials to perfect john list's characteristics, right down to a scar that he had behind his right ear. list, i went to the university of pennsylvania and met with some of the top rhinoplasty surgeons in the country. and dr. bartlett told me how the mastoid operation was done back then and how the scar would look after, like, 18 to 20 years. so reaching out to different forensic experts like this, talking to other law enforcement people, part of that team work, all that -- those bits and pieces of information come back to me are pieces of my visual puzzle that come together to make this work. >> but there are still some obstacles to overcome. >> now what made the john list bust more of a challenge than any other fugitive i ever worked on was the fact that i was only

given frontal views. there was no side, no three-quarter view of john list available to me at that time. so i was able to take the frontal view and determine by highlights and shadow how the nose would be formed. >> the final task, john list's eyeglasses, a real guessing game for which bender seeks some professional advice. >> well, the psychologists told me that he wouldn't be wearing contact lenses. i thought about the glasses and i thought about john list and what type of person would john list become? he wanted to give this image he was much more successful than he really was. >> with that in mind, frank bender goes shopping. >> i went to the little antique shop around the corner and said to bill who owns the antique shop, do you have any old glasses? he said, yeah, i have a basket full. i went through the whole basket and there wasn't anything like what i was looking for. he said, wait, i have a couple more in this drawer.

i said, let me see. he showed me. i said, that's the pair, right there. take them. they're yours. >> within four weeks, bender creates what he hopes is a perfect likeness of john list today. but is it? >> i feel very confident when i finished the bust. i took the bust down to "america's most wanted" and mike linder and the team involved with the list case all gathered around the bust in the conference room. people were confident as far as the rendering, the technical end of it. yes, it looked realistic. but as far as did it look like john list, no one knew. i'm just a piece of dirt stuck here in a rut. ever since that ol' broom dumped me here... oh, oh. oooh! will love ever come my way? oh my!

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on sunday evening, may 21st, 1989, the tv series "america's most wanted" broadcast its 66th show. and in the case of john list, the quiet deeply religious accountant from new jersey who murdered five members of his family 18 years before, then disappeared, comes back to life. westfield police captain bernard tracy. >> i went to the show that day. and the bust gave it life.

and it is three-dimensional and it just gives it life. and i think a lot of people were impressed by that. >> the segment is eight minutes long, and bender's bust of john list was broadcast to viewers all across the country. now, all law enforcement officials can do is wait. "america's most wanted host" john walsh. >> we got so many tips. i think after the segment aired it was amazing. we got over 200 solid tips. here was a guy the fbi spent over a million dollars looking for, not gotten one tip. we got 200 tips in one night. >> i think "america's most wanted" did a great job. they went out and got frank bender to do a bust. they made the show, a presentation to catch a criminal. and it went to the one person who was able to say, i know this man. >> that person turns out to be wanda flattery of aurora, colorado. when she sees the bust, she knows the man. she knows him as robert clark, a former neighbor who had recently

moved out of state. flattery's son-in-law calls in the tip to "america's most wanted". >> i read the tip sheet wanda's son phoned in. and he was, like, certain. i know this man, robert clark, he lives at this address, but didn't give great detail about other personality things. >> the address that the flattery family gives to "america's most wanted" is in richmond, virginia. >> when that tip came in, the phone operators, one in particular, got excited and said i think we know where this guy is. i think we know. then you turn it over to the fbi and they start the process. they knew they had to act relatively fast, get all the richmond police, get a hold of agents down there and make that arrest. >> even though flannery's tip seemed solid, the police and fbi still have other leads from the show to investigate. >> once all the tips are collected, they're divided into area of jurisdiction.

in virginia, the fbi decided that they would check out that one particular tip. the tips that were in the metropolitan area, i personally was going to check out. >> but the flannery tip is right on target. fbi agents move in on robert clark on june 1st, 1989. after 18 years, fbi agents arrest robert clark. his fingerprints matched not only those of john list, taken during his army service, but also match prints taken just one month before the crime when list applied for a handgun permit. not only that, but robert clark's face looks exactly like the bust. >> he wore the same glasses that he put on this bust. so it was pretty amazing. it is pretty cool. >> when i got the phone call that john list was identified, through the help of my bust, it made my day. and it just -- it just really made me feel good.

wow, it worked. all that work, thought and physical effort paid off. >> after 18 years, john list has been captured. and the town of westfield is in shock. timothy benford, co-author of "righteous carnage." >> that day i'm riding from here and going into town. i notice people talking across property lines, people on corners, an unusual sight. i pull up to one group and i say what happened? a woman turned to me and all she had to say was they got him. i knew instinctively who she was talking about. >> when he was captured, people were shocked. the community was elated. it was the talk of the town. i mean, it was incredible. it was an event here. i mean it was a real event.

>> the town is relieved at list's capture. but many wonder what he's been doing all these years and how he managed to evade authorities for so long. when we come back -- >> usually most murderers are so terrified of being caught or trying to escape that they don't have the time to sit down and reason and be rational and do this. john list did. we think and we're pretty sure he had a lot of this all worked out. this was his master plan before he pulled the trigger.

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after killing five members of his family in november of

1971, john list travels cross country by bus settling in aurora, colorado, where he assumes a new identity and begins a new life. >> well, john list could do it. he was a bright man. he worked in life insurance in different points in his life. and he was able to take on a new identity. he had done income tax and knew about social security numbers, he kept to himself. it was easy for him. it was easy for john list to disappear. >> you know, usually, most murderers are so terrified of being caught or trying to escape that they don't have time to sit down and reason and be rational and do this. john list did. we think, and we're pretty sure, he had a lot of this all worked out. this was his master plan before he pulled the trigger. this was a preplanned -- he knew how he was going to do the whole thing and make his exit. >> john list became robert clark. >> he was a short order cook. he took this menial job for a

very short time and just did it to accumulate some money. eventually, once he got comfortable being around people and that he wasn't going to get caught, he took on other jobs as a bookkeeper. he was able to get more comfortable and eventually join the church in his town and meet a woman and get married and live relatively comfortable. >> but how does a god-fearing man like list simply begin life all over again, putting the guilt and memory of his murderous past behind him? >> it is incomprehensible unless you accept the notion that to a deeply religious person, eternal bliss in heaven is a truth. if you accept that, then you can rationalize that death here is not that important, which i think he could do.

>> in the handwritten confession he left at the crime scene, list wrote, i'm sure many will say how could anyone do such a horrible thing? my only answer is, it isn't easy and was only done after much thought." >> i think that's what kept him going, that he believed that he had done god's will. that he had sent these people to heaven, prior to them being tainted by worldly things. he took care of them. he couldn't change. because if he changed, he would have to question everything he had done. and then the guilt and the pain may get to him. >> on june 22nd, 1989, john list is extradited back to new jersey. on july 10th, his attorney enters five pleas of not guilty on behalf of his client. nine months later, john list finally stands before the bar of justice for the murders of his wife, mother and three children. >> ladies and gentlemen, you will note that the defendant,

john list, expressed his concern about the government doing its duty as it sees it. well, today, 18 years, 4 months and 23 days after a day of horror in westfield, new jersey, on november 9th, 1971, the state is bringing this matter, this indictment to trial. >> during the trial, the transcript of a taped interview with list and a psychiatrist hired by the prosecution is admitted into evidence. it was such a horrible thing list says. but once i started, it was like i was on automatic pilot. i killed them all so no one would survive, so no one would have to know what happened. it was almost a sigh of relief that i killed them all. looking back, it was such a horrible thing, if i had to do it over again, i would find some way of getting help. and why did he murder his family?

john list in his own words, "i convinced myself that this was the only way out and i had to carry through with it. i did not consider how this would affect others. it was almost like i was looking in the wrong end of a set of binoculars." another psychiatrist, this one testifying for the defense, diagnoses john list as an obsessive/compulsive. on april 12th, 1990, only ten days after the trial begins, the jury comes back with a verdict, guilty on all five charges. john list is sentenced to five consecutive life terms in prison. captain bernard tracy, the police officer who never let the list case die, is in the courtroom. >> i kept my eyes on mr. list, and he showed no emotion. which is just shocking to me. i mean, i -- maybe -- i don't know. it's just mind boggling. i mean, i just -- i mean, i think of my children or my mother and my wife and i just

can't imagine how you can sit there and accept all of this. and, you know, i just don't get it. but again, i think he is from another world and he's just a cold, selfish person. >> the 18-year hunt for john list is over. it brought together a unique cast of characters. police officers, fbi agents, a forensic sculptor, a television show and a woman watching tv in aurora, colorado, all of whom came together to bring a killer to justice. >> john list is going to spend the rest of his life in prison thinking about what he did. and his fake remorse -- he was only sorry that he got caught. that's all that he was sorry for, not killing all those people. i can't be objective about it. >> what is justice? i mean, maybe justice is sitting there and giving it thought and living out your life in prison and giving it thought every day.

the fact that he had 17 years of freedom, was able to remarry and have another life, i mean, to me, that's a little unjust. but, again, he has to sit there and contemplate. and that can sustain him and maybe he can make peace with god. [ male announcer ] just how many appliances are on our wish lists? 'cause this season, the timing couldn't be better. right now,

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